My little worrier

   Catalina has always been a very cautious, careful girl. She never ran into the street, she rarely even hurt herself, as she was not giving herself chances to do so. She is very gentle and somehow frail, so I was happy to protect her myself as much as I could. Question is, was I right in doing so, or was I overprotective?
 
    These days we have pretty strong winds, and with our house on top of the hill we get scary noises inside. She keeps on asking us if somebody is coming, and who is in the house. I have to repeat several times that only Catalina, mommy and daddy are in the house. I so wish I could bring a sense of safety into her mind, but I have no idea how.

  Last night I was reading to her Dr. Seuss book "Happy Birthday". In the book, the birthday bird takes the birthday boy to many fun adventures. In the evening, the bird returns the boy to his house, tucks him in his bed and flies away. After finishing, we had this conversation:
Catalina : "Where is the bird going? why is the boy all alone?"
( I told Catalina several times that little kids should never be alone, and mommy will never leave her alone in the house, and if it ever happens that at daycare all the teachers and kids leave the room and she stays behind, she should ask loudly "wait for Catalina")
Mommy:  The bird had to fly to her house to sleep
Catalina: But why is the boy alone? where is the birthday boy's mommy?"
Mommy: Oh, the mom is in the kitchen, she does the dishes
Catalina: But where is the mom's bed? where will she sleep?
Mommy: I think the mommy sleeps in a different room, there are some boys and girls who like to sleep alone in the room (we are still a very happy co-sleeping family)
Catalina: but the boy is alone...

And the conversation kept on repeating on the same theme: why is the boy alone, and where is the mom. I was surprised to say the least. The mom is not portrayed in the book, and the whole feel of the story is one of having fun, eating cake and partying. It's just my little worrier who felt so sad the boy is alone and his mommy does not sleep with him. Catalina has this talent, on picking on the smallest, most unexpected details and developing her own vision of a specific situation. Her imagination has no limits.

    She is truthfully the most amazing girl there is. And, lately she keeps repeating:
"God gave Catalina to mommy and daddy because He loves mommy and daddy. And God loves Catalina too. God loves everybody. And mommy and daddy are very happy God gave Catalina to them"

Yes, all stories of love with our cute bun. And, to come back to more earthy endeavors, here she is, helping mommy make "turtite":

A melting heart

Photo shoot this weekend. I can't stop admiring my princess :)

Will you be my valentine?

And this amazing girl said YES :)

I asked her if she loves her mommy, and she said yes, with a big smile on her face. Then I asked her why she loves mommy. And she said: because I like you, and you are so so sweet. And this is why our house is full of love.

And daddy made sure the house is full of chocolate also :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Quality time

     Coming to America opened up my english vocabulary immensely. For example, it took me quite some time to understand what it means to spend quality time with your children. It still makes me laugh thinking that one can spend quality and non quality time with their kids. Like, for example, you teach your kid to count, that's quality time. You scream at your kid for misbehaving, that's non quality? How do you draw the line? Can you have neutral (it's not quality, but also not non quality) time?

   That being said, we had plenty of quality time (by all standards) with Catalina this weekend. Since we pretty much flooded her brain with disney movies, we decided it's time for some artsy activities. We started with play dough and Catalina made a whole army of "peoples" :)

Bottom to top: Mommy, daddy, Catalina, baby (??? hopefully she's talking about her doll), Miss Edna, Miss Anna, Miss Anne (her teachers), Pascal, Dana, Gabi, Tanya, Tamina, Nalani, Kolja,
Catalina gains interest in new toys everyday, and high on her list are dolls. So, we assume that her interest in a new baby comes actually from playing with her "baby" doll.

Next stop on the artsy "quality time" was cutting paper. I remember how much I loved it when I was little. My daughter (and I am quite sure every other kid) likes it too.
Half an hour after rigorous vacuuming, Catalina made sure we have a reason to do it all over again :)

And this is how my cutie pie woke me up on Sunday: a beautiful picture of our family: mommy, Catalina and daddy.

Since we did get a little bit of snow, we decided to enjoy it. After finally convincing daddy to get outside, we took a walk in a park nearby. Catalina loved the snow, and wanted to play hide and seek around the trees.

We finished a beautiful weekend enjoying some quality (??) :) time in front of the TV. Mommy and Catalina watched "Despicable me". Actually I was watching while Catalina showered me with sweet kisses, telling me every second how much she loves me. Yes, I am a spoiled mommy :)
FYI: we are both wearing "Cinderella dresses" : a bath towel on your head makes it look like a cape and therefore very royal:)

The most talented girl in the world!

      Obviously, the most talented girl in the world is Catalina :). We had some delightful days lately. She is in a good mood almost all the time (skipping of course dinner time and nap time). She plays nicely, agrees to most of the things we ask her to do and spreads love at every step.

    A month or so back, we bought her a standing microphone. She had one from a karaoke system (Christmas present from nana Petronela), but that one works only connected to the TV. So we got her a portable one also. Mommy and daddy had a lot of fun playing with it, Catalina didn't want to touch it. Until one day...when everything that she said was over the microphone. Loud and...sometimes clear :).
She talked, sang and gave concerts. Here she is, ready for a full concert:

    Since we were confident that she got singing skills perfected, we moved to the next level.    Gymnastics!
    There is a place quite close to our house that trains for national competitions (!!!) and they have a class for little toddlers (less than 3yo) also. Parents accompany the child all through the class, so it was perfect for us.

Off we go, Catalina keeps on saying she doesn't want to go. We give her a choice: no tv and no gymnastics, or tv and gymnastics. I guess it's good we got her hooked to TV, since this worked very well during the day. Blackmail worked wonders. She got inside and after a few tantrums and cries she started participating.

The balance beam is a natural for every romanian! :) Yes, she walked by herself towards the end (three steps at least!) The balance beam was around 1 1/2  feet above the ground, which is more than half her hight. Thinking of my self walking a balance beam at 3 feet...well, I am impressed with my daughter and that's that :).

Bars...not such a strong apparatus for romanians. Catalina did her best though and tried to jump and catch the bar as many times as I asked her to. We're getting there, baby, don't you worry!

Waiting patiently for her turn on the trampoline.

This was the last step of the gymnastic class. And then the crying again, because Catalina does not want to leave. No worries, we'll be back soon for more fun!